First Impressions / K-ON!

「先生！」 (Sensei!)
“Teacher!”

It’s the return of Sawa-chan to her heavy metal days, but I couldn’t help but picture an entire nation of Mio lovers in complete shock after she stated she has no interest in boys. Say it ain’t so Mio! Someone should probably check that there were no hikikomori or 2-D advocate suicides yesterday just to be on the safe side. Anyway, this episode not only had the long-awaited second coming of the foul-mouthed “Catherine” and her Death Devil band, but also the introduction of fellow guitarist Kawaguchi Norimi played by Asakawa Yuu. When the two of them were reunited with their other band members, it was seriously a “forget this light music business” moment as Sawa-chan was compelled to take off the glasses, get Yui’s butt off the stage, and show her how things are done. In other words, get the “we’re not going to have any of that cutesy light music crap here!” point across. It’s always got to be the glasses that are the last line of defense in sealing up the wild and crazy side of characters too. Like it or not though, Death Devil is here to stay as Kyoto Animation and Pony Canyon are going to milk this badass heavy metal for all its worth with a release of their single at the end of this month. As an added bonus, we finally had the K-ON club members dressed up for a change, though it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.

Looking back, the second half of this episode alone made it entirely worthwhile, but first half with everyone tailing Sawako to find who she’s been seen getting dropped off by and getting angry with over the phone was great quirky comedy. By great, I mean Yui absolutely takes the CAKE for still being as naive as a gradeschooler and thinking that it’s Sawa-chan’s mom when everyone else in the entire world was thinking it might be a new boyfriend. The setup leading into that was utterly awesome and nicely followed up by Azusa saying that Yui doesn’t have to think about it. Next there was Mugi getting all fired up about playing detective and getting intrigued by the prospect of Sawa-chan with another woman. She also ordered a ganmodoki (deep-friend tofu with vegetables) just because she’s never seen one before and liked the ring of it, only to get disappointed by how normal-looking it was. Last but not least, she even insisted that Sawako make her stand out in the hallway after Mio got caught passing notes around self-study class, thanks to Ritsu’s amazingly fast drawings to crack her up. Now here’s the Mugi we all know and love from season one! I was really starting to wonder if she’d ever show up.

As for Norimi a.k.a. Christina herself, she actually turned out to be a pretty thoughtful yet cunningly manipulative individual much like Sawa-chan. I sure as hell wouldn’t mind seeing more of her down the road, especially with the way Ritsu is scared as hell of her. With that said, who the hell invites a heavy metal band to a wedding even if they are your ex-club members? (Notice the bride and bridesmaid in their flashblack.) To each their own I guess. The next episode looks like it’ll be a scorching hot day and whatever that entails, such as Yui passing out from heat stroke. Bring on the heat!

* It was interesting to learn that Sawako put “musician” as her career choice much like Yui did and got her submission rejected all the same. You’d think she’d let Yui chase her dream when she wasn’t given the opportunity to, but I guess not. Now Yui’s going to end up as a teacher or something.

 

Preview

56 Comments

      1. Actually I just tried. With all /a/ lurking I’ve been doing for a week I just decided to give it a go.

        It’s just curiosity with their Angel Beats live streaming thread. I really have stop visiting /a/… Stupid Keanu threads….

        megalith
        Reply

    2. I had 18 JTV channels up on site before they died and the demand is huge for watching live anime

      Watching live gives you a chance to live tweet about it and, also, catch any announcements for anime series or music releases

      kyonkun
      Reply

      1. I see.. Well I’d love to try this on FMA but I dunno what decent streaming sites there is. They gave two links yesterday, one was hinamizawa.jp(I think) the other I forgot. Sadly yesterday they were down.

        megalith
        Reply

  4. I just knew it that Sawako would take matters in her own hand when she overheard the guests describing Yui and Death Devil as kawaii and moe. I swear I heard the collective scream of metal fans when they saw HTT.

    https://randomc.net/image/K-ON/K-ON!!%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
    Hmm, Sawako also put “Musician” as her career choice. No wonder she was happy for Yui and Ritsu from the previous episode.

    Lurker
    Reply

  6. Of course it’s not true that Mio doesn’t like boys, it’s in her character archetype to deny any embarrassing interests let alone relationships. Back tracking to Season 1 where Mio said she would “never” try on those cat ears but was secretly caught doing so by Ritsu (“M-mustache!”), we can safely say that Mio is doing the same here. She even blushed.

    Mio is interested…very interested…quite so that her trickery here will not go unnoticed let alone unpunished.

    Horus
    Reply

  9. “* It was interesting to learn that Sawako put “musician” as her career choice before much like Yui did and got her submission rejected all the same. You’d think she’d let Yui chase her dreams when she wasn’t given the opportunity to, but I guess not. Now Yui’s going to end up as a teacher or something.”

    Wrong. Sawako (and Yui) put their career choice under choice of school, THAT is why they were rejected. This is also why Sawako smiled after she rejected Yui’s choice: it made her remember her own mistake back in her high school days.

    Sawako showing how things are truly done didn’t surprise me one bit. What’s interesting is that Death Devil apparently played a brand new song, yet Sawako tried cutting all ties to that band. Was she somehow secretly practicing and writing songs, since she seemed to know the lyrics flawlessly?

    Firelord
    Reply

    1. You would think they’d point that out rather than just shaking their heads or saying no if it was a matter of filling in the wrong box, so I’m inclined to believe it’s because it came off as not enough thought put into it. So to me, “Right.”

      divine
      Reply

  16. haha doubt Yui would end up as a teacher though, the students might as well flunk the exams…

    nice episode, it got me touched, and plenty of sawako’s past! hmm next episode is not on great hint, so I guess we’ll just have to see what’s on next week…

    Kaineng
    Reply

  17. I just love it when previews for the next episode prove me wrong but something better comes up anyway. (Yeah, yeah, self-deprecation FTW/L…)

    Anyway…

    Pardon my anime nostalgia, but isn’t this type of food stall similar to the one Oji Tanaka (Legend Of Black Heaven) eats in?

    Catherine/Norimi: Just as planned… Damn Death Note meme…

    At least we finally got an episode with a new song, just not from HTT…not that I mind though… 😀 c\m/

    Incognito
    Reply

  19. The subtitle of this episode: The Awakening of Sawa-chan the Devil. lol

    So just how many members does Death Devil have?

    I reckon these 4 are their basic members.
    https://randomc.net/image/K-ON/K-ON!!%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2039.jpg

    I see 3 more girls here. Are they perhaps Sawako’s juniors? Perhaps Death Devil is more capable of recruiting new members than HTT.
    https://randomc.net/image/K-ON/K-ON!!%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2034.jpg

    BTW, doesn’t Norimi/Cristina resemble Himeko A LOT when her hair was longer back then? 🙂
    http://img2.gelbooru.com//images/629/8cdbd79e7715f632fa8601a3377b89ccca9c68ed.jpg?765326

    Having just read volume 3 of the manga, I can say Mugi is probably a closet masochist besides a closet yuri-lesbo fangirl. So not surprised she’s actually LOOKING FORWARD to getting punished.

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

      1. Thanks for that link – now I’m itching to grab a copy of that Newtype issue. Got a full attribution (date or issue number) that might help in tracking it down?

        That aside, after glancing at the image a couple of times, I suddenly felt as if I were looking at Ui in her impersonate-oneechan role.

        Then I noticed the double name on the upper-left-hand side: “Yui” horizontally, “Ui” vertically.

        So, which sister are we looking at here? (The “u” appears to be printed in a larger font size than either the “yu” or the “i”, which may be suggestive, but it could just be my subconscious expectations playing mind tricks again . . .)

        Diego
        Reply

  21. OK, a bit of useless trivia for figuring out Sawa-chan’s age. 🙂

    The school rotates the ribbon colours based on seniority, currently it’s as follows:
    Green – 1st yr
    Red – 2nd yr (Azusa, Ui, Jun)
    Blue – 3rd yr (Yui and co)

    Going by this order, and as Sokabe-senpai and Sawako were both seen with red ribbons, the following can be deduced:

    G – Just graduated, now in Uni 1st yr
    R – Sokabe-senpai (now in Uni 2nd yr)
    B – Uni 3rd yr
    G
    R – I wouldn’t place Sawako here, as she was already a teacher when Yui started high school 2 years ago, when this group would still be in uni. So I put her in the previous class of Red Ribbons earliest
    B
    G
    R – Sawako and co – This would put Sawako’s age somewhere around 25-26. (Yui would be 17 now and Azusa 16)

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

  22. Epic! I want Death Devil spin off show now !!!!!! Or we’ll burn the studios now!!!! How this little evil episode got me so fire up don’t know. but my metal memories rushed back like a hot day in hell.
    I crack up with this maracas for heavy metal yay!!!!

    Sawa is hot and her band is awesome bring more off it Metal kill moe. 😛

    Island Esper
    Reply

  29. The anime only content has been a little tedious, but not too bad. It’s interesting what KyoAni has did with adding characters that have yet to be seen in the manga. Wish this episode had more head banging and head swinging. Also loved Mio’s reactions to Ritsu’s awesome drawings.

    fall3nbs
    Reply

  33. woooooooooooooooooooooow, I LOVED IT. I LOVE SAWA CHAAAAAAAN XD
    I really loved this episode, it was really funny at the first half then “Death devil” amazin!
    the touching moments and Mugi.
    I wanna watch it again

    lol
    Reply

  37. MIO ISN’T IN TO GUYS! SHE THINKS OF THEM AS ANIMALS!! XD

    vol. 4 chapter 8 says it all..which just led me to think that she’s a closet perv..

    *manga spoiler*

    she’s insanely freaking out w/ the mere idea of ritsu having a boyfriend! SHE’S JEAL0US OF THAT GUY BEC. SHE LIKES RITSU F0R HERSELF! BWAHAH-*gets bludgeoned by n0n-yuri fans*

    keiOnDaisuki
    Reply

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